University! One of the biggest milestones in life and also one of the biggest uncertainties in life. Especially if you're choosing to stay on campus because it's cheap and affordable. Campus life, or how NUS students refer to it as hall life, is totally different from the comforts of home, meaning you must learn a trick or two to be able to survive there. Your items or belongings for example, are one of the important assets you'll need for campus life. Things like laptops and handphone chargers are widely known to be essential stuff, but aside from those, there are also a few other things that may not be so obviously important but otherwise crucial for hall survival too. One of the most crucial item for hall survival happens to be:-

Ear plugs. Or anything that can cover your ears when you're sleeping.

One of the important lessons that you'll need to learn in university hostel life is that not everyone sleeps the same time as you and not everyone might have the same sound sensitivity as you. You may want to sleep at 10 pm for example, because of a test tomorrow, but your next door neighbor or some random fella living near you might not have the same exam. And on top of that, the said person has just bought a wonderful set of speakers that is capable of blasting music up to a range of 100 meters away and he/she is happily testing the quality of the speaker by playing "Bad Romance" by Lady Gaga again and again. So what do you do?

Crossing your fingers and hoping for it to end, for one, would certainly not work because not only the sound would not stop, you'll end up with numb fingers and are unable to write for exam tomorrow. A direct confrontation would not work either, because you'll probable be faced with a death stare face when you head up to the fella's room and comment about the speaker. Rumors about an old person who cannot tolerate sound will also start flying around the hostel soon and sadly, you're the old person in the rumor. And in a worst case scenario, the people who were blasting the music happens to be partying to alcohol, and we all know how alcohol lowers inhibition, and your appearance in asking for the volume to be lowered down may result in undesirable consequences. Like a broken bone and bruised eyes. Not good.

So the best solution would of course be a pacifist solution where any confrontation, either indirect or direct would be avoided. And that's where the ear plugs come in! That way, no one would be unhappy. You could sleep peacefully without any sound interference and those guys can continue their own partying. 

Or if you happen to be the "I don't care, if i cannot sleep i'm gonna drag you together with me to hell" type of person, ear plugs would not be the item for you. Instead, you can consider:-

1. The Ultimate Bad-ass Speaker System

"Fight fire with fire". There's no better way to voice out your frustration over the Lady Gaga's Bad Romance by countering it back with William Hung's She Bang. If you can't sleep thanks to the sound coming from unknown speakers, neither can anyone else. That way, you'll get the sweet feeling of revenge and hinting to the fella that plays the speaker at a loud volume after 12 in the morning. Of course, the earplugs would still come in handy if you plan to sleep and wake up for the exams.

2. A hand grenade

Talk about a permanent solution. Find the source of the sound, knock on the room door housing the irritating speakers, lob the grenade in and close the door. You don't have to worry about the speakers causing trouble anymore. Provided if you don't end up in jail, that is, but that would also solve the problem by the end of the day.

And thanks for tuning in to Lukey's 3 ways to solve the noise interference that may bug you in NUS hostel life! Now that the speaker has stop making noise, i can stop blogging too and return to sleep. Goodnight.